Author's Note

Sorry for the really, really, really, really late chapter, but I have had stuff to do. Like, really, really important stuff that shouldn't be explained to people over the Internet. Good news, though, I have completed the entirety of Discord Rules. So, as long as I remember the story, I will post the last few chapters once a week.

The Jungle

Discord Rules

Chapter 8

The Jungle

“What is with this place?” Harmonia asked, after stepping on a vine that squealed at her for the twelfth time.

That vine wasn’t the only weird kind. There were some that breathed fire at her, some that died the instant she touched them, some that wrapped around her, and some that just disappeared.

“Didn’t that guy say that Discord couldn’t influence this place?” she wondered aloud, “Is this really how this place is normally?”

Several creatures wandered around in the distance, and Harmonia decided not to approach them. The plants were bad enough.

“Speaking of plants…” Harmonia muttered. Before her was a massive clearing, filled with a tangled mess of a purplish vine, with a single massive bud in the center. The vine hadn’t been anywhere else in the forest, but it was overgrown in this one spot.

“This seems suspicious,” Harmonia said to herself. In the instant she said that, the bud in the center opened up, and she felt her hooves leave the ground.

She looked around, and saw that she wasn’t being held up by anything. Instead, she was being sucked in. She immediately began flapping in the opposite direction. Vines began to reach for her, and she shot bolts of magic at them, ripping them to pieces.

The vines began to regenerate, and continued reaching for Harmonia. She performed a series of complex evasive maneuvers and flew directly at the plant’s center. Vines piled up further and further, blocking any path directly to it. Harmonia had to settle for ripping her way through a wall of vines that regenerated at almost the same rate at which they were destroyed.

Vines grabbed her back legs, and pulled her out of range of the main body. She continued firing indiscriminately, hoping to hit something vital. More vines wrapped around her, eventually cocooning her in an ever-growing mass of plant matter.

Small cracks in the cocoon allowed Harmonia to see out. She saw the vines extending out of the small clearing and ripping up trees, smashing animals, and generally killing everything it could. Nothing could put up much of a resistance to it.

Anger sparked in Harmonia’s mind. These were the creatures she was here to protect. They weren’t allowed to die. She released a burst of pure magic, decimating the shell of vines around her and allowing her to escape.

The plant began to reach for her again, intent on capturing her alive while killing everything else. This, more than anything else, angered her. Why should she be the one to watch everything die? What made her so special, that she needed to be tortured like that?

Her anger burned hot in her chest, then moved through her head and into her horn. A white and black flame burst out of the tip of her horn, destroying most of the plant, while leaving the other flora and fauna unharmed.

Immediately, the vines grew back and began attacking again. Harmonia fought back, but even her anger could not sustain her long enough to prevent the vines from eventually grabbing onto her and imprisoning her. She eventually ran out of energy to power her magic, and collapsed, exhausted.

The vines shifted, and one side of the cocoon opened. It revealed a large, eye-shaped object, that pulsed in all colors of the rainbow. The core of the plant glared directly at her.

Harmonia summoned up all of her energy to slowly shift herself closer to the core. It stared at her, clearly believing that she could no longer fight. She would use that to her advantage.

Once she was close to the core, Harmonia raised her head. The core glared directly into her eyes, a bit of confusion in it, wondering what she was trying to accomplish. She lowered her head… and rammed her horn straight through the core, destroying it instantly.

The vines around her turned grey and crumbled, allowing her to fall lightly to the ground. All around her, the plant was dying, and the jungle was being liberated. Plants and animals rose up out of the ashes left behind when the plant died, and continued with their business.

Harmonia was not so fortunate. Instead, she collapsed and was instantly asleep.

“You’re the True Chaos? That isn’t even funny,” Discord said, “I am chaos incarnate. There’s no one else.”

“”You thought you were chaos incarnate,” said the True Chaos, “In reality, all you are is one of my pawns.” His voice was such that anything that heard it couldn’t help but want to believe everything he said. Even Discord.

“No! That isn't true!” Discord said.

“Believe it or not, it is true. You two know,” said the True Chaos, nodding toward the two Princesses.

Luna and Celestia looked at each other, then nodded. Celestia stepped forward, “After our becoming alicorns, chaos seemed to become a more aggressive force, as if it was becoming more desperate. I suppose that was him,” she nodded at Discord, “doing whatever he wanted.”

The True Chaos nodded, “Yes, yes, it was. You see, everything must be balanced, or everything will fall apart. And I don’t want everything to fall apart, so I did my best to balance everything. However, when you two came along, you began to push toward order. I couldn't allow that to happen, so I cut off a piece of myself to balance against you two. The stupid piece, I might add.” He glared directly at Discord, who glared right back.

“You two were supposed to help me keep balance. However, you could not see the benefit in chaos, and you rejected that position to create order,” he continued.

Luna looked visibly pained at this, as if she regretted making that decision. Celestia however, stepped even farther forward, and said, “Of course! Chaos is evil! It does nothing but cause harm to living things!”

The True Chaos simply sighed, “Chaos is life. Without chaos nothing could live. It is order that death belongs to.” Celestia stepped back in shock. “In fact, what you saw Discord here create during his time in Equestria was simply another kind of order, albeit a strange one. The chaos was during the change to his order, not the actual presence of his order.”

“Wh-how can you call what he does order!? Order is when things make sense!” Celestia cried.

“For once, I have to agree with Celestia here. I am not an orderly being! I am a chaotic one! I am the Spirit of Chaos!” Discord said.

“It was order because things repeated. The repetition was not obvious, but if you looked close enough, you could see it. The repetition was the changes. It changed in a regular manner. If Discord was an actual ‘spirit of chaos’, he would be more subtle. To live is to cause chaos,” the True Chaos turned to Discord, “And you’re just preventing that.”

“B-but I–”

“No buts! I have waited long enough, and now a new candidate for my place has appeared. I will take over your role to cause as much chaos as possible, and the new candidate will prevent either order or chaos gaining too much on the other.”

Celestia looked as if she realized something. “And who w-would that candidate be?” She looked like she was afraid of what the answer might be.

The True Chaos glanced at her and grinned, “You know who. I shouldn’t need to answer that.”

Celestia asked, “Just as a confirmation, who is it?”

The True Chaos’s grin grew even wider. “Why, it’s your student and her friends, of course.”